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Bolt opens season in Kingston with rare 4x100m loss

Multiple world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt got his 2015 campaign underway at the Gibson Relays in Kingston by running the anchor leg for Racers Lions Track Club in the 4x100m, but the Jamaican superstar’s team was surprisingly beaten in the final.

The Racers Lions breezed to a heat victory in 39.26, but the University of Technology team posted a quicker 38.87 in a previous heat. Still, few would have bet against Bolt’s team in the final, as it also included Commonwealth 100m champion Kemar Bailey-Cole and world 200m silver medallist Warren Weir.

Thanks to a storming second leg from Julian Forte, the University of Technology team were ahead before the half-way point. Weir was unable to make much of an impact on Kemarley Brown on the third leg, so Bolt received the baton some five metres down on UTech’s anchor, Tyquendo Tracey, the 2012 world junior 4x100m silver medallist.

Tracey ran the leg of his life to hold off Bolt, winning in 38.23 while Racers Lions had to make do with second place in 38.29.

It was the first time since 2007 that Bolt has been beaten in a 4x100m relay. His last loss in the event was at the Zurich Weltklasse meeting almost eight years ago.

UTech made it a double in the senior clubs relays, winning the women’s event in a meeting record of 43.13.

Further meeting records were broken in the boys’ high school 4x100m, with Calabar High School – anchored by world youth 200m champion Michael O'Hara – clocking 39.32, and in the men’s long jump as Nicholas Gordon leapt 7.95m (1.7m/s).